Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Guess the Pod, Round 6

Agent ST0NER SMURF and Vrix Nation have provided us with the raw materials for our final(?) round of Guess the Pod. This round will be presented in two parts, each one designed to make you stretch your abilities to the absolute limit.

For the first part, you will see tearmails written by five different carebears. Each one of them lost implants, but the value of their pods ranged from 45 thousand isk to 107 million isk. Your job is to figure out which carebear lost the pod worth the least.

Let's begin.

Sutelra Sirober broke out the font color and size options. Regular text wouldn't do--nor would a mere solo exclamation point. Something must have prompted this customization.

DustinRF has been around the block a time or two. That's plenty of time to save up money for implants, but maybe long enough to know better than to equip them without a permit.

Jaqeuline Rogers takes solace in the knowledge that her ganker lost his ship, too.

Though almost willing to acknowledge defeat, Pavor Nocturnis can't stand to have said defeat rubbed in his face.

Shevas Townsend's tears are poetry in every way. Poetry, after all, often comes from a place of sadness and grief. So how much did Shevas' poem cost?

You have your task, dear reader: Who lost the least? Lock in your answers now.

Final warning. Spoilers ahead.

The poetry of Shevas Townsend cost only 45 thousand isk. Sometimes the carebears who lose the least cry the most.

Okay, dear reader. It's the last part of the final round. Time to take things up a notch. The following five carebears each lost an empty pod and sent in a tearmail. But one of them later lost a pod worth 569 million isk. Your job is to figure out which carebear.

"Later lost a pod?" you ask. That's right. At the time of the writing of his tearmail, the carebear had not yet lost the expensive pod. Your challenge is to divine the carebear's future based on his tears.

Hey, I warned you that you'd be pushed to your limits. You're a MinerBumping reader. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. You've got this.

Suu Ian invited our Agent to get an "honorable kill" instead of popping empty pods. Would a half-billion isk pod be honorable enough?

Taren Floralys was deeply confused about the Code, and exchanging EVEmails with our Agent didn't help. Even so, ganks are a universal language. Taren should know better than to bling himself up after this.

Though headed to Jita anyway, Elren McClain clearly didn't appreciate her ride on the Pod Express. Even more worrisome is her apparent surprise that someone would be podded in highsec.

Otto Bismark8899's response is as basic as it gets. "Fuck" didn't take the center square in Miner Bingo by accident.

Impressively, Camyla Monica Jiang managed to send the first tearmail just seconds before receiving her copy of the standard "Violation of the Law of CODE." EVEmail, which she then immediately replied to. She looked into our Agent's future... But could she see her own?

Which brings us to the moment of decision. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and lock in your answer.

This is it. Resume scrolling when ready.

If your answer was Otto Bismark8899, I'm afraid you may have been incepted a lil' bit. That is not the correct answer. As we learned in Round 4, Otto lost a 573 million isk pod, but it was before the follow-up pod loss and tearmail seen above, not after.

Our future pod-loser was Elren McClain, who couldn't believe she'd been podded in highsec. Apparently she thought the loss of her empty pod was a mere aberration. She learned otherwise when she lost her 569 million isk pod a few weeks later.

Let's give a round of applause to Agents from Vrix Nation for inspiring all the tearmails used in these six rounds of Guess the Pod. As for the carebears who wrote the tearmails, something even more valuable than applause: A piece of advice. Obey the Code, you Goofuses.